Judy Blume's 'Tiger Eyes' screens at film festival

Judy Blume, the beloved and controversial children's writer, loves the time she spends in Key West each winter, in part because it reminds her of the two years she lived in Miami Beach as a child.

She can ride the same kind of bike, and look at the same stars at night.

"My childhood is so clear to me, especially the years in Miami Beach," says Blume, explaining how, at age 74, she is still able to write for children. "I think it's just that some people retain their childhood better than others."

Blume has been perhaps the most important children's author of the past 40 years, selling some 80 million copies of classic books such as "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret," while pioneering the use of delicate subject matter like racism, divorce, masturbation and teen sex.

And yet, amazingly, when "Tiger Eyes" debuts at the Palm Beach International Film Festival on Monday, it will mark the first time one of her novels has been made into a movie.

"There were many, many lunches," says Blume, who admits she has been "very protective" of her books. "I call them the 'Judy, sweetheart' lunches, which went like this: 'Judy, sweetheart, what do you want to do?'"

Blume says she was waiting for a filmmaker who brought his or her own passion and vision to one of her books.

Now she's found such a filmmaker — her son, Lawrence, a 48-year-old veteran of the movie business as a production assistant, editor, and director of a 2002 micro-budget indie comedy, "Martin & Orloff," much loved by the few who have seen it.

"Larry always had that passion," Blume says. "He read 'Tiger Eyes' when he first went to college. He knew then he wanted to make it into a movie."

Interestingly, "Tiger Eyes" is one of only two novels Blume has written for young adults, along with "Forever." Apart from the occasional adult novel, like "Summer Sisters," most of her books are intended for children.

The story of "Tiger Eyes" — a teenage girl goes to live with relatives in New Mexico after the death of her father —has personal resonance for the Blumes, mother and son. They collaborated on the screenplay.

"One reason I wanted to do this book was that it has personal meaning for me," Lawrence Blume said by phone from New York. "As a young teenager my parents divorced. It's a parallel story and it's always resonated emotionally."

What's more, Judy Blume's second husband, a physicist, moved the family to Los Alamos, New Mexico, when Lawrence was in his early teens. She wrote "Tiger Eyes" there.

"The years in New Mexico were the most formative part of my life," he says. "I know the time and the place, the surrounding canyons and Native American lands."

As for Blume, she says she did not realize it at the time she wrote the novel, but she drew on the early death of her father, a dentist who died suddenly in 1959 when she was 21.

"My brother doesn't show much, but when he was here for a screening in Key West he was in tears," she says. "But there's a lot of joy in the story, too. I don't write downers."

The movie version of "Tiger Eyes" happened quickly once a friend brought in investors willing to provide "a limited budget." Despite a small budget, he shot the film on location in New Mexico, with Blume at his side.

The production got lucky with some casting choices, she says. Willa Holland, best known from TV's "Gossip Girl," plays the young heroine, Davey.

"We had a day and a half in New Mexico and a day and a half in L.A. to cast this movie," she says. "When you see it you will be amazed by this young woman who carries the whole story. She's in every scene."

As the young Indian man who befriends Davey, Lawrence cast Tatanka Means — and in the process got his father, the famous activist and actor Russell Means to play the father in the movie.

"We could never have afforded the great Russell Means to play Mr. Ortiz, but he said he wanted to do it," she says. "I think he wanted to work with his son. We lucked out with both of them."

Blume admits that writing a screenplay "is not my favorite kind of writing. Larry is good at structure, I'm not. That was good." But she loved being on the set in New Mexico.

"Larry was extremely generous," she says. "The set belongs to the director. I had my own little tiny bench next to his so I could watch everything through the viewfinder. I don't know what it's called. I could whisper things to him. Sometimes we had to change dialogue."

Early in his career, he worked a few days on the set of "Heartburn," the 1986 Mike Nichols adaptation of Nora Ephron's novel. He observed Ephron on the set working closely with Nichols in "a casual and respectful interaction."

"Directors are usually very insecure if the writer is there," he says. "My experience enabled me to turn to Judy and say, 'Did we get it right?' She's my most reliable collaborator. It was a great comfort."

Blume declares herself happy with the film version of "Tiger Eyes," calling it "a faithful adaptation that captures the core of the book.

"A movie is never a book, it's just not," she says. "You learn that the hard way. When I see a movie I'm satisfied if it's faithful to the essence of the book."